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Communities in the Natural Reserve Tariquía, in the south of Bolivia, are fighting to stop governmental oil and gas extraction projects that will deteriorate nature and their already precarious living conditions.
Image credits: Rhett A. Butler
by Nina Py Brozovich
El Rio Grande. The Great River. Sometimes residents can walk through it to get to Tariquía, a national nature preserve in the department of Tarija in the south of Bolivia. When the river rises enough to reach their chests they have to go by horse. All the water sources of the region, including the Amazon, gather in this river.
Yet hydrocarbon exploration projects are contaminating this crucial flow and reducing its volume. The diminishing river is endangering the communities that depend on its water. These communities are fighting to stop governmental oil and gas extraction projects that will deteriorate nature and their already precarious living conditions.
“We will defend the territory with our lives,” says Nelly Coca, 60, who was born and raised in Chiquiacá, a community in the North of Tariquía. Coca is very involved in the fight for the protection of the natural reserve, she says. “Tariquía is not negotiable.” She remembers, proudly, with a lot of pride how oil companies tried to settle in Chiquiacá– and how she and other activists managed to force them out in 2019. “The government tried to stop us. They even sent police units to separate us and attack us.”
Image credits: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%ADo_Nuevo_Guadalquivir
Some say living in a natural paradise can be like hell on earth. Dwelling in territories with great natural wealth can mean constant harassment and threats, as corporations and governments exploit the territory at the expense of communities’ safety and well-being. Latin Americans, having lived through colonization and foreign interference for a large part of the region’s history, often live the reality of this popular saying.
Since 2015, the Bolivian government has set their sights on oil and gas resources in the heart of the Tariquía natural reserve, located in the department of Tarija. The government argues that the country’s hydrocarbon reserves are shrinking, that it must look for new sources of income.
Yet according to environmental experts, these gas projects should never have begun. "This space is a natural reserve; any economic activity in the territory is prohibited by law," says Andrea Álvarez, an expert at the Bolivian environmental foundation Gaia Pacha.
Starting in 2017, recurrent street protests enabled the communities to delay the projects. In 2019, while the country was outraged by the huge forest fires in the east, the Tariquía community marched for nearly two weeks from Tariquía to Tarija to show their rejection of any project on their lands.
Álvarez recalls that Coca’s group’s demand “had a lot of resonance at the time. It was such a big issue that even political groups adopted the cause as a political statement during the political conflicts of that year and in 2020."
Yet years later, the issue seems to have taken secondary importance. Bolivia's Post-pandemic economic recovery became a priority. Economic struggle seems to justify what months before might have seemed unjustifiable.
Image Credits: https://eju.tv/2019/03/civicos-refuerzan-bloqueo-y-preparan-paro-en-defensa-de-tariquia/
Soon after the Covid crisis, the Bolivian government changed the land use declaration for Tariquía, removing its status of "core zone" and making it legal to exploit the territory’s natural resources. The government approached the Tariquía communities to try to convince them of the urgency of the projects. “[Officials] came with food to give to the families and made them sign a receipt note that they used as proof of prior consultation, as required by Bolivian law,” Coca says. “They even used falsified signatures, and signatures from children.” Some residents have said they have been threatened by officials, who told residents that they would lose their jobs and even their lives if they did not support the projects.
The opinions of the residents are divided, Álvarez says. Some hope that these projects will bring wealth and development to the communities, but most don't believe that these types of projects will benefit anyone, and certainly not them.
For the moment, the government hasn’t expressed any clear plan to redistribute the income from the desired projects or to help the communities in Tariquía improve their poor life conditions. "Even though there are water distribution systems, the water is not treated and [it is] unsanitary. I’ve even seen frogs coming out of the tap. We run out of electricity with every heavy rain, or the water pipes get destroyed,” says Coca. “Most of the things they consume are produced locally." Tariquía is therefore, she says, “a self-sufficient community."
Image credits: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rio_Tarija_%26_rio_chiquiaca.jpg
Tariquía is made up of 3000 people living in 10 communities. They love their land and their people. Most of them work in agriculture. One of the most promising economic activities in the region is honey production, which is beginning to have some relevance in the Bolivian market, but access to the territory is still a major constraint to its development. The children walk about 2 hours to go to school in Padcaya, a nearby town, and once they reach high school they live in school dormitories in nearby towns. As great as their love for their land is, young people born in Tariquía leave their village to study in bigger cities and often settle there to have access to better living conditions.
Coca says tourism would be a key economic activity to develop in the territory. The region’s beauty is “incredible,” Álvarez says. “I would love for everyone to see how wonderful this place is.” As a nature preserve, Tariquía is remote and difficult to reach. To visit the territory requires special permission from the government or an invitation from the territory's communities.
It is “absurd,” Álvarez says, “to think that the government is doing monstrous extractions in a place where even a harmless visit is not allowed.”
Tariquía is a strategic place both ecologically and economically and serves as a source of water recharge for aerial water streams. The clouds filled with water form in Tariquía and collide with Sama, a mountain range in the reserve of the same name, and serve as a water supply for the entire department of Tarija. "Without Tariquía, life in Tarija would be impossible," says Nelly Coca.
The government claims that the country is running out of fossil fuels to exploit and one of the main untapped sources is in Tariquía. According to the Minister of Hydrocarbons, Luis Alberto Sánchez, the extraction project in Tariquía will bring the country some US$5 billion (El País, 2019). At the same time, with the new explorations, water flows are being polluted or even reduced. "During exploration, dynamite is used, which causes the subway water channels to be closed or obstructed," according to the expert of the Prometa organization, Claudia Oller (Mongabay Latam, 2017).
Recently, the communities of El Cajón, Bermejo (Astilleros Well), agreed to the extractive projects and the consequences were not long in coming. The water stream became contaminated with the chemicals used during the extraction work, causing diseases in the communities, as they get their water supply from the Guadalquivir River. "Their cattle are dying because of the toxic waste that these companies have left in the river water," says Álvarez.
Image credits: https://www.pub.eldiario.net/movil/index.php?n=40&a=2021&m=03&d=30
The fight for the Tariquía territory has become more of a fight for survival and the dignity of its inhabitants. Most Bolivians are familiar with El Cuento de la Abuela Grillo, a Bolivian children's tale that mixes Andean music by Luzmila Carpio and animation. The story tells how an old cricket, Abuela Grillo, who has the power to control the rain and therefore the water supply, is mistreated by her community. Eventually the community learns to appreciate her and recognize her essential role.
Nelly Coca has 5 children, 10 grandchildren, a great-grandson and a 90 year-old father for whom she says she fights to conserve the territory in which she grew up and has lived all her life. “I will defend Tariquía with my life.”
“Mi Tierra no se vende” - Residente (Puerto Rican singer and rapper)
Nina Py Brozovich, a first-year at Brown from Bolivia. Stereotypical nerd concentrating in Computer Science and Mathematics. Passionate about animals and anime.
Tariquía, poisoned land
After a life-changing internship in 2019 at the refuge La Senda Verde I became very attached to the environmental cause and worked for years with several environmental organizations in Bolivia. Since then, I hope to contribute to social and environmental justice with everything I engage in. The Tariquía issue is a very hot topic in Bolivia right now, as the Bolivian government is trying to reopen the process after years of resistance from those living in Tariquía. What makes this case especially significant is that is illustrates perfectly the state violence against unattended communities that live in very precarious conditions and the only thing they want is to protect the place where they live and their community, as we have seen in other cases like the emblematic TIPNIS. I hope to give visibility to this issue and raise concern about how our neighbouring communities are treated.
Interviews and Research
Nelly Coca - Chiquiacá, Tariquía
Andrea Álvarez - Fundación Gaia Pacha
"Suman voces para defender Tariquia y evitar explotación petrolera." Los Tiempos, March 29, 2021. Accessed May 12, 2023. URL: https://www.lostiempos.com/actualidad/economia/20210329/suman-voces-defender-tariquia-evitar-explotacion-petrolera.
"Bolivia: Tariquia amenazada por hidrocarburos." Mongabay, June 2017. Accessed May 12, 2023. URL: https://es.mongabay.com/2017/06/bolivia-tariquia-hidrocarburos/.
"Bolivia estudia un plan para preservar la mayor área de bosque seco de Sudamérica." El País, April 4, 2019. Accessed May 12, 2023. URL: https://elpais.com/internacional/2019/04/04/america/1554335622_161574.html.
"Monitoreando Boletín 06: Tariquia: Human Rights Violations and Concerns Regarding Oil Exploration Activities." Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. Accessed May 12, 2023. URL: https://media.business-humanrights.org/media/documents/Monitoreando-Boletin06-1-tARIQUIA.pdf.
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